


Flying Through The Ages

by Grundy



Series: Daughters of Celebrían [11]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, elven flight, runs in the family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:15:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27394081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: Quite a few elves in the House of Finwë have attempted to fly. Only a few succeeded.
Series: Daughters of Celebrían [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/357041
Comments: 33
Kudos: 57





	Flying Through The Ages

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Learning to Fly, Reprise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088896)

Eärwen sighed.

Seeing the remnants of the children’s’ attempt to ‘fly’ – which had apparently worked for at least a few seconds, just long enough to give all four more bad ideas – had driven home how fortunate they’d been that Nerwen had lost the game of chance to determine who would ‘fly’ first.

Her nephew’s ribs were still healing.

Her daughter was adamant that being punished by her parents for her role in the affair was entirely undeserved.

“No, Nerwen, I can’t say that I’ve changed my mind in the least.”

She groaned internally at the look of triumph on her law-brother’s face.

Fëanaro and Nerwen were far too alike, and if the girl saw him gloating, it would make things worse. No doubt Naro had already added some punishment of his own – Nerwen hadn’t asked to go to visit her twin cousins all week. The lack of complaint about not seeing them was rather telling.

“If the One meant elves to fly, he would have given us wings. You are not to try any such thing again, even when poor Pityo has recovered.”

“But _Emmë!”_

“No buts, my little cygnet. And as many times as I’ve had to explain this in the last five days, I dearly hope one day I have the joy of seeing you try to explain it to your children.”

Given that all of Nerwen’s brothers and nearly every cousin have attempted it to date, Eärwen was fairly confident the odds were on her side.

\---

“Look, Ammë!”

Celebrían was in many ways her father’s daughter more than her mother’s. With so few Noldor left, it was only natural that she picked up Sindarin habits more readily than Noldorin. But it looked like she took after her mother’s family in at least one way.

The wings might be made of still living branches and resemble an improbably large butterfly more than any bird, but given that her silver-haired daughter was currently leaping mightily in defiance of gravity, it seemed she was as curious about flight as any of her Finwion forebears.

Fortunately, she had the good sense to stick to leaping from the ground, not off of walls, trees, or roofs.

There was still a tiny sliver of Galadriel’s soul riled that she’d not gotten to try out those wings before they met their untimely end. They would have worked. And disappointing as her mother might find it, she will not be telling her child that elves were not meant to fly. In a world where Morgoth had been defeated, _anything_ was possible.

She smiled and called back to her daughter.

“Your wings are lovely, darling. Who helped you build them?”

She already knew the answer. She must thank Tyelpë whenever next she saw him – which would probably be quite soon.

\---

Celebrían was seized by an unholy urge to laugh at the mutinous set of Arwen’s tiny chin and the fierce glare she was giving her older brothers for stopping her and informing their mother.

“It’s not _fair,_ Nana! _Grandmama_ can fly! Why can’t I?”

Of course, it didn’t much help that unlike her own slightly whimsical childhood attempt – aided and abetted by Celebrimbor, who in retrospect had almost certainly also been keeping a vigilant eye out to make sure she would not come to any harm playing butterfly – her children had family members who had thwarted gravity. Little Arwen had a somewhat valid complaint about being forbidden to further the efforts at elven flight.

If history, not to mention her husband, was to be believed, Celebrían’s mother-in-law _had_ actually flown. (Her father-in-law also could be seen in the sky nightly, though thankfully his grandchildren have all fixated on flying like birds. She’d be a good deal less sanguine about attempts to imitate a star, as that would almost certainly involve some form of fire.)

She was thankful the boys had intervened. Unlike their youthful plan, which had involved jumping from the ledge above the pool where they often were taken to swim or dive, Arwen had been on the point of springing from one of the balconies overlooking a waterfall.

“That’s as may be, darling, but she had help from Lord Ulmo. Jumping off the railing with these is more likely to end with Ada setting broken bones, not you in the sky with the other birds. But they _are_ magnificent wings. How long have you been collecting feathers?”

Actually, it would more likely have ended with a broken neck, but no need to scare her daughter. Or her husband, who tended to underestimate how much mischief his daughter was capable of getting into.

\---

Eärwen wasn’t sure, but this might actually be better than watching Nerwen having to deal with her own child trying to fly. And to think both Celebrían and Elrond described their youngest child as ‘the least trouble’!

Tindomiel and Anairon had quite thoroughly smashed Pityo’s famed ‘three whole seconds’ – and according to her father, been lucky not to smash Tindomiel into the bargain, seeing as they’d put far more thought into _flying_ than _landing_.

Her great-granddaughter, of course, was already grounded, so Eärwen saw little point to any grandmotherly outrage on her part. (Anairë would most definitely be another story – a child _and_ a grandchild at the same time.)

Súyelírë was as calm as ever about the entire affair. If anything, she seemed to be delighted by watching four generations of reaction play out under her roof.

Nerwen was visibly torn between being put out that her youngest granddaughter had bested her childhood efforts easily and exultant that someone had definitively proven that elves could _so_ fly. (Alas, the person she no doubt most wanted to say it to was still in Mandos.)

Celebrían was doing her solid best to put all blame for a clearly Finwion trait on Elrond, determinedly overlooking that she’d also been quite taken with flying as a child.

Tindomiel was oscillating between as proud as punch at her and Anairon’s joint success (though there was no hiding that the initial idea had been hers) and irritated that she was being grounded for doing something that no one had actually forbidden her to do and therefore wasn’t against any rules she had been aware of.

Just when Eärwen thought the whole thing was winding down, her father poked his head in.

“So, who else is up for a spot of flying with Tindomiel’s improved skysail?”


End file.
